As we detailed in last week’s post, you will see pretty much the same TouchWiz UI that Samsung has deployed for the past few years, although Kit Kat’s white notification bar icons will finally be in place – no more Gingerbread Green battery icon. Unfortunately, Samsung has yet to detail any extras they have put into TouchWiz with its update to Kit Kat, but we are sure there are a few extra treats in there besides just icons.

With these types of major updates, it’s hard to be specific on when it could make its way to the State’s Note 3 variants. More than likely, it won’t be anytime too soon, so owners will have to remain patient for Samsung to give it the green light globally.

It’s good that they updated their android phones but the main thing is there music.A music player to challenge the limitations of the Android default music apps So make sure there music players are the superlative apps as compare to other phones.

Mike Aurin

Good stuff. They’ve been pretty quiet on the whole thing. Would love to hear potential S4 news as well.

EvanTheGamer

Hopefully it won’t be too long now before us Stateside Galaxy Note 3 owners will be seeing Android 4.4.2! Can’t wait!

Richard Yarrell

It will make it soon enough to the states. Kit Kat been in testing for the Note 3 for a little while now. Tmobile Note 3 owners will see it by the end of January no later than February 15th. If your on VERIZON then won’t be till March or April

Dr_Buttballs

Shut up, Richard.

Adrynalyne

He has stepped up his game. Now instead of putting others and their devices down, he is making date claims.

flosserelli

But he’s probably right about Verizon being last.

Adrynalyne

Don’t need insider knowledge to know that

hkklife

Not necessarily true. Verizon has stepped up their game lately, at least to an extent and compared to where they were a few years ago. Sure, the Note 2 and GS3 4.3 updates were the last to arrive but prior to that, they had been churning out the Moto X and Droid line updates quite rapidly. And the Note 3 has received 2 bugfix updates for VZW thus far. And they probably have the best track record of updating relatively ancient carrier-branded or exclusive devices with minor security, bugfix and bloatware updates (look how the Droid X2, Charge, Thunderbolt, Incredible 4G, Droid 3, RAZRs have all gotten updates waaaay past the point when they cease to be “recent” mainstream devices.

jim

with 64k of storage and 3 gig of ram, the bloatware doesn’t really bother me

Adrynalyne

Install very small apps…64k is going to be rough.

jim

my bad lol multi tasking

Adrynalyne

The hopeful side wants to believe.

The skeptical side is doubtful.

jim

Verizon is always last

squiddy20

He’s always made date claims. He claimed to know the release date of his “legendary” Evo 3D, based solely on the release date of the Evo 4G, and turned out to be almost a whole month off. He claimed to know the released date of the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, but each time a new date was found, would then say “oh no, it’ll be released on THIS date…” (which happened 3 or 4 times). He claimed the US versions of the S4 would have wireless charging, 3GB of RAM, the Exynos 5 Octa, that curved display tech Samsung was showing off at CES a few months before, and “a pad” on the device to measure blood pressure/blood sugar levels, the latter of which would be a major health/safety violation. He claimed to know the release date of the Note 3, and was off by a few weeks.
You’d think he’d learn…

DC_Guy

It’s YOU’RE…period! Plain and simple!

Adrynalyne

You know what is fun? Google this phrase:

“Plain and simple nothing beats Samsung period.”

Look at the results. Paid sponsor.

DC_Guy

LOL oh boy!

Philip J. Fry

His android and me profile made me lol definitely paid to troll

squiddy20

What’s funny is, it still says he’s a big supporter of HTC and that he’ll be “purchasing [his] Evo 3d on June 24th 2011″. So even that hasn’t been updated in over two and half years.

What’s the point of putting touchwiz on Galaxy devices since 90℅ of people don’t use it? If stock Android were on board it would allow for faster updates.

Good_Ole_Pinocchio

90% of the people don’t use what?

Adrynalyne

Methinks back to that saying of statistics being made up…

macindroid

90% of DL readers maybe don’t.. of the general population? um yea maybe 0.001% don’t use TW. I like modding stuff but I really like TouchWiz. For me, it’s intuitive, smooth, and has features I use. That said I am probably going to install BeansTown ROM or something like it soon for my S III .. Oh man I want a Note III….. so much.

Diablo81588

TouchWiz and smooth should never be used in the same sentence, especially on the S3.

Adrynalyne

It is smooth though…as long as you don’t touch the screen.

:p

Big_EZ

Smooth? Intuitive? Samsung’s garbage is the last thing from intuitive. I hate all that they’ve changed from stock Android, its so unintuitive now. I’m not even talking about the bloat that slows them down and makes them freeze, just the basic functions that make using this phone daily a nightmare. It was okay when I had a custom Rom (that reverted most of the retarded stuff from Samsung) but still wasn’t great. Now that I can’t unlock this replacement and I’m stuck on stock it’s almost unusable. Now that I’m on stock touchwiz many apps force close, the phone freezes, and I miss the data connection that my Motorola phones phones had.

BillySuede

90%, eh? care to present come factual data to back that statement up or would you rather simply admit you’re simply stating your opinion and leave it at that?

Kevin

That’s what all the Samsung fanboys were claiming in an earlier post.

crazed_z06

What are you talking about? Anyone who using a Samsung device is technically using Touchwiz. And the reason they dont all of a sudden change it is because they have spent years building a brand identity with it. They want you to know that you’re using a Samsung phone when you pick it up. Think of how BMW has used their “Double Kidney” Grill on just about every car for decades. There is much value in brand identity. It doesnt matter if geeks on tech blogs dont like Samsung, that brand recognition is worth a lot. Samsung might continue to refine and tweak touchwiz, but it’s doubtful they ever will scrap the whole thing and ship stock Android.

Compare Touchwiz with Sense. IF we go back to HTC Gingerbread phones, Sense will look nothing like it does now. With Touchwiz, it still looks like it always has. There is a reason for this just as there is a reason Apple stuck with the same look on iOS for years. Even with the iOS 7 update, it’s still iOS. When you build a brand as big as the Galaxy or iPhone, you dont make drastic changes on every iteration.

Kevin

My bad, I worded it wrong. I mean don’t care or don’t even know how to use touchwiz features.

Franny

90% of 60% only use touchwiz.

Benjamin Mackie

I use the slimmed down the version of touchwiz that came with JellyBeanz rom, and actually I’ve found it works really nice

Colton

this would be nice if i had a Note 3
/sadface

Good_Ole_Pinocchio

Note 3 is a pretty great device…though not my style/size. Do we have anymore S5 rumors?

Rechie

Will the Note II receive such update?

flosserelli

3-4 months after the Note 3.
There are (unofficial) 4.4.2 ROMs available for the Note 2 already.

Adam Elghor

They don’t even have those for the verizon note 3….ugh I hate a locked bootloader

T4rd

Are you sure? There are other ROMs available through safestrap on the Verizon Note 3. You just can’t use a custom kernel with them.

michael arazan

I read on other blogs the Note 2 and GS3 would get it late in the first quarter, sounded like march or end of February.

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